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Dessert

Sultana Cake

A sweet cake made with sultanas, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cream, finished with lemon icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Sultana Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sultana Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Mix in the beaten egg yolks, then add the cinnamon and nutmeg.

  3. Stir in the cream lightly.

  4. Combine the flour and baking powder, sift twice, and gradually mix into the batter alternating with the beaten egg whites until smooth.

  5. Fold in the sultanas evenly throughout the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour into buttered pans and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. While still warm, coat with lemon icing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed mixture hold air for lightness.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter; separately beaten whites add lift and a light structure.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
Sultanas
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites with the flour. Adding flour and whites gradually and mixing only until smooth keeps the batter airy. Overmixing develops gluten and knocks out the air from the whites, leading to a dense, tough cake.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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